So you're in your little scout tank and MM delivers you the bottom tier...time for despair? To rage against RNGesus in chat before YOLO'ing up the middle or finding the nearest lake? Breathe deep and take heart my friend, the Match Maker has just given an opportunity to punch way above your own weight, potentially delivering massive assisted damage far above your normal tier and commensurately huge XP and WR rewards...you have been given a gift, don't frak it up.

My goal when scouting is to light up the enemy tanks, preferably in a key strategic area of the map, so my guys can shoot them from range/cover, so they can see the layout of enemy forces and move to counter their thrust, and also in closer-in combat my guys can see exactly what the red tanks are doing so they can peek & DERP more effectively. There are 4 big things to doing this well, tank & crew setup, knowing the meta-game to predict where the red tanks are most likely to be, knowing a good location with cover, and learning when to not shoot.

For tank hardware and crew, it's all about doing everything possible to increase view range and increase your cammo value, plus getting 6th Sense absolutely ASAP.
For the meta-game and good locations to hide, that's what I hope my videos here are illustrating.
For when not to shoot...oh it's so hard, do you throw a killing shot into that Hellcat with 50HP left sniping your guys from the far ridge but almost certainly expose yourself? 90% of the time the correct answer is no, don't shoot, let your team clean up, but it's soooo hard...

With any tier scout tank I usually start a match with a passive scouting location like in the videos below, but then after a few minutes when all the chess pieces are on the board I'll start thinking about good infiltration opportunities to sneak in and kill some arty, or flanking opportunities to hit an enemy salient from the side to turn their thrust so my team can roll them up.

- PLEASE WATCH THESE FIRST -

Scouting 101 video covering the basic mechanics of scouting:

Tanking 201.5: Scouting video discussing the role of scouting within WoT:

Wow I just came across this. Thank you thank you!! I love being a passive scout and recently discovered that I do. Probably for the same reason as my T-50-2 is gone. On some maps I haven't quite found the right spot(s). These will help immensely! Can't wait to get home tonight and watch these! Thank you again! ☺